Bollywood rocks National Film Awards with Kangana Ranaut, Amitabh Bachchan as winners

The 63rd National Film Awards were dominated by Bollywood with Kangana Ranaut and Amitabh Bachchan named as the Best Actress and Actor for their roles in ‘Tanu Weds Manu Returns’ and ‘Piku’ respectively. The award for Best Film went to SS Rajamouli’s magnum opus ‘Baahubali’. Sanjay Leela Bhansali won the national medal for Best Director for his dream project ‘Bajirao Mastani’. The Deepika Padukone-Ranveer Singh starrer also bagged the awards for Best Supporting Actress (Tanvi Azmi), Best Choreography (Remo D’Souza) and Best Cinematography (Sudeep Chaterjee).

‘Piku’ and ‘Tanu Weds Manu Returns’ also won Best Screenplay awards. Ayushmann Khurrana and Bhumi Pednekar’s ‘Dum Laga Ke Haisha’ was named the Best Hindi Film while Kabir Khan’s ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’ won the award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment. Kalki Koechlin won Special Jury Award for ‘Margarita, With A Straw’.

Ranaut, who turned 29 last week, said her best actress win is a great birthday present. "It is the best birthday gift I could have got. I am thrilled and feel blessed especially since Mr Bachchan is the best actor with me," she said in a statement. This is her third National Award. She won her first for Best Supporting Role in ‘Fashion’. Last year too she had won Best Actress Award for her role in ‘Queen’. This is Amitabh Bachchan’s fourth National Award. The actor first won a National Award Best Actor for ‘Agneepath’ in 1990. His next two National Award wins happened in 2005 and 2009 for ‘Black’ and ‘Paa’ respectively. This is also fifth National Award for South Indian music composer Ilaiyaraaja (‘Thaarai Thappattai’). Neeraj Ghaywan won Best Debut Director award for ‘Masaan’.

Kabeer Khan took to Twitter to thank all his fans for his win. Kareena Kapoor too wished her ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’ team. “It’s one of the greatest films of its time. It spoke a lot about humanity, love, support and integrity. So, I’m very proud to be part of it. It was great working with Kabir and Salman (Khan), who actually believed in the script and made it happen,” she said.

Twitter started bursting with congratulatory messages as soon as the awards were announced. Ranbir Kapoor, Richa Chadda, Ayushmann Khurrana, Farhan Akhter, Paresh Rawal, Dhanush, Karan Johar among others joined the list of well wishers who congratulated the winners. While Johar congratulated all other teams of winner, he seemed to be over the moon with ‘Baahubali’win. “So proud to be associated with #Baahubali ...the national award validation for truly the best film of the year!”he tweeted. Vir Das congratulated Varun Grover (‘Dum Laga Ke Haisha’) by tweeting, “Hey @varungrover congrats on being the first ever stand up comedian with a national award! Very well done man!”

Tamannaah Bhatia and Rana Daggubati too tweeted about their association with the Rajamouli film. "Many congratulations to @SrBachchan on receiving the well deserved National Award! God Bless!"tweeted Rishi Kapoor. While Shilpa Shetty Kundra said, "Congrats 2 all the winners of the #NationalAwards.Tough choices but All winners well deserving, esp @SrBachchan U R such an inspiration!" Director Hansal Mehta wrote, "Kangana Ranaut is an inspiring biography in the making. What a story."